[WSIS CS-Plenary] Practical & Procedural Problems at IGF.

[Dr. Francis MUGUET]

Hello again,

this time with bad news.

The IGF meeting organizatiion is raising
many problems that are denounced, to
various, by many attendants.

1/ the date, coinciding with a vacation
period is incovenient. Planes and Hotels are full.
Ticket prices are much higher.

2/ the location, somewhat isolated
within a chic suburd, where the sight of
a ferrari and luxury cars is not unusual.

3/ the venue is simply exclusive
in both senses.
The obscene luxury of the venue does not fit.
Yesterday night, stumbling on a diner in one
of the room, I have got the impresion that
I have got the wrong TV channel and I was
watching an episode of "Rich & Famous".

The negotatiated room price at the venue
is 172 euros.
It is so expensive that a diplomat from a western
european country told me he had to ask for
special authorization
as this price exceeded allowed limits !.

When I tried to buy a sandwich to eat while
at the cybercafé, I went to the bar, where
I learned that the price of a "club sandwich" is 14 euros.
I haven't look at the price of the restaurant... :-(
This contrasts with the UN and UNESCO cafeterias that
are affordable.

If you rented a car ( I did so for 20 euros/daily ),
be prepared for a surprise tomorrow.
The UN police is clearing all nearby parkings,
and the only way to park ( unless going rather far )
in the underground parking of the Hotel
which you must 10 euros /daily.
In Geneva,for Prepcoms, a parking permit
was given free to attendants with a car.

Rooms include simply of lines of chairs without
any tables to put a  computer, and without outllets
to power them.

4/ Network
The Wifi broke 3 times tbis afernoon.
The cybercafé is undersized, with only
14 computers ( Dell sponsorship ),
all running Windows XP, in contempt
of WSIS recommendations.
Upon my request a table for laptops and
a printer  was added.
I asked the computer manager ( who is using
GNU/LINUX ) to implement at least half of them
with GNU/linux.  I asked Kummer and
he agreed.
Be prepared for network crashes tomorrow. :-( !

5/ Overpasses.
The main Hotel meeting room may hold
800, when 1500 are registered to
attend.
Just 100 overpasses were alloted to
Civil Society.
Seemingly, per chance, the responsibility
for the overpasses, was given to Adam Peake.
The very few same that are in favour of
killing the CSB, were the first to complain
about the way the overpasses were distributed.
They just having a taste of their own medecine,

6/ Web site
The Synthesis Paper is only available
in doc format.

In constrat with other WSIS meetings, they were
no discussions with CSB, and no
  preliminary meetings between the organizers
and the CSB executive secretariat to handle
all those practical and procedural issues.
This tedious and time-consuming work was not much heralded,
but it was very important.
Learning from this experience, for next WSIS meetings
the CSB should prepare well in advance all
those procedural issues.

That's will be all for tonight

Francis

-- 
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  Francis F. Muguet  Ph.D
  MDPI  Open Access Journals -  Associate Publisher
  http://www.mdpi.org  muguet at mdpi.net

  Knowledge Networks & Information Society Lab. (KNIS)
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